Mad Hatter's Holiday

by Peter Lovesey

  The present necessity was to watch every move that Dr. Prothero made. Sooner or later the investigation must concentrate on him. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. Here was a man who had already buried two wives and was treating his third as though she did not exist, openly deserting her by day and administering chloral to her by night to keep her in ignorance of his iniquitous infidelities. Zena herself had described the marriage as ‘a continuous ordeal’ and talked of the ‘unspeakable thing’ that made the child Jason her single consolation. Cribb had made a note of the phrases when they were repeated to him and could be relied upon to understand their significance. Oh no, it would not be long before Dr. Prothero came under suspicion for the murder of his wife. Wasn’t membership of the medical profession tantamount to a predisposition for murder? There was a long line of murderous doctors, from Palmer, the Rugeley poisoner, to George Henry Lamson, who had gone to the gallows as recently as April for killing his crippled brother-in-law. Doctors had the means of disposal to hand, after all, and their work brought them into such intimate contact with death that it was no surprise if occasionally one of them developed a cynical indifference to it, even a predilection for it as a convenient way of solving problems. Palmer and his kind were those who had made errors. How many others in the same profession had committed similar crimes nobody had detected?

  The details of the case—the circumstances in which Prothero had returned from the regimental ball and Zena had been on the beach—were for Scotland Yard to determine. What mattered was that until they were ready to arrest the doctor every move he made should be observed, every suspicious action recorded, and he, Moscrop, would see that it was done. A singular way to pass a holiday, but one that, curiously enough, brought him peace of mind.

  Beyond the barques and pleasure-yachts dotting the expanse of the sea, a war vessel was at gun-practice, a compelling spectacle, for after each flash on the water and before the puff of white smoke dispersed, there was a moment’s hiatus while one waited for the boom of the gun. He was watching this phenomenon for perhaps the fifth time and beginning to speculate more generally on the delay between cause and effect when he saw that Dr. Prothero had come down the steps of the Albemarle and was turning into the Marine Parade in the direction of the Aquarium. That he was not going to look at fish or reptiles this morning was evident from his clothes. He wore walking-boots and leggings and carried a stick and a bulky knapsack. His stride bore all the indications of a long hike in prospect.

  Moscrop pulled nervously at the ends of his moustache. This was a new development, quite foreign to the routine of Brill’s, Mutton’s and Lewes Crescent that he had thought was inflexibly established. It held him temporarily incapable of action. Anything else—a carriage-drive, a boat-trip, a walk along the pier—he could reasonably have accepted. But this—it was unaccountable, and quite impossible to have anticipated. Heavens! Where was the man going dressed like that, striding towards the centre of town?

  He set off numbly in pursuit, through Steine Gardens and past the Victoria fountain, forced almost into a trotting gait to keep within sight of the eccentrically dressed doctor, who was passing with his knapsack—who would credit it? under the very shadow of the Town Hall towards North Street. The trail continued past the circulating libraries, Treacher’s and Wright’s, across the junction with West Street and into Dyke Road, the steep ascent making no appreciable difference to Prothero’s rate of progress.

  Moscrop had reason to be thankful for his daily constitutional along Oxford Street; Prothero was demonstrably in better physical condition than men half his age. But the necessity of keeping pace was not the most alarming aspect of the march. Of more concern to Moscrop was the grim sense of purpose in the set of the doctor’s shoulders and the almost military rigidity of his head. This was no taking of the air; it was a calculated march and it was leading them by the quickest possible route to one of the highest points of the South Downs. The knapsack, boots and leggings, so out of place among the shoppers in North Street, were entirely justified here, and Moscrop, in canvas shoes and flannels, was pathetically ill-equipped. Aside from the folly of attempting to cover uneven terrain in such gear, he faced the prospect of appearing as conspicuous on the Downs as Prothero had looked in Brighton.

  As they approached Seven Dials he made the decision he knew he must: he would watch Prothero cross the road, see which route he took of the half-dozen available, and then double back to his lodgings for his walking boots and the Zeiss binoculars, staking the power of the lens on the open slopes against the twenty minutes start he would thereby sacrifice. If, as he suspected, Prothero had decided for his own reasons to walk clean out of Brighton and over the Downs by the loneliest route, someone must give pursuit. The man might never be heard of again. It would be a grave mistake to depend upon young Guy to lead the authorities to his father. The boy had left the Albemarle half an hour before Dr. Prothero that morning, and in all probability was already pedalling out of Brighton along some quiet lane on a hired bicycle.

  At the Seven Dials crossroad, Prothero marched unhesitatingly to the continuation of Dyke Road. Moscrop turned left into Vernon Terrace and unashamedly ran down the hill towards his lodgings.

  One of the largest of the arch-fronted buildings under the Parade had been put at Constable Thackeray’s disposal. So had Constable Murphy, principally known in Brighton for his tea-making. Unhappily, no one had provided a gas-ring.

  ‘I could always try the boxing saloon next door,’ suggested Murphy. ‘It’s known locally as the Blood Hole but I reckon the owners might try to think of something else after this week’s melancholy happenings. Sugar and milk for you?’

  ‘We’ll leave it for half an hour, shall we?’ said Thackeray. ‘We should be through this lot by then and I’ll enjoy one of your specials back at Grafton Street when I’ve got the smell of fish off my hands. Found anything else in your bin?’

  ‘It’s mainly driftwood and seaweed,’ said Murphy.

  ‘Lay it all out neat, just the same. Those was the sergeant’s orders.’

  The floor was already three-parts covered with objects taken from the beach during the diggings earlier in the week. In the search for human remains everything picked up except pebbles had been deposited in bins. The necessary work of sifting the contents for a possible clue was in the capable hands of Thackeray and Murphy.

  ‘Your sergeant’s taken the afternoon off, has he?’ said Murphy, carefully smoothing out a strip of seaweed and placing it, like a necktie, over the back of a convenient chair.

  ‘I don’t think he’d do that,’ said Thackeray. ‘He’s not above fitting in a swim now and then, but he wouldn’t take long over it. No, he’s gone to Dorking on the train, as a matter of fact. Pursuing inquiries there. No offence intended towards you, of course, but I wouldn’t mind being with him. I think he might have something to say to the newspapers when he gets back tonight.’

  ‘What’s that—the name of the murdered woman?’

  ‘I ain’t at liberty to say,’ said Thackeray primly. ‘Hey! Keep your eyes on the job. That’s a piece of paper you’ve got there. All the paper has to come to me. Sergeant Cribb’s instructions.’

  The instructions (which Murphy could not very well dispute, Cribb having communicated them through Thackeray) were that Thackeray should take charge of anything made of paper, cloth and metal, while Murphy handled the rest, including seaweed, driftwood, gull’s feathers and fish remains.

  ‘Here’s another garter for you, anyway,’ said Murphy. ‘That’s the fifth, and they’re all too faded to have been there just since Saturday. This old beach could tell a few stories—what’s that you’ve got?’

  Thackeray unfolded a piece of blue paper. ‘I’m damned if it ain’t the very thing the sergeant asked me to look for! This is going to make my day. Here. Come and have a look.’ The paper was headed ‘Saddington and Sims. Dispensing Chemists.’ The words written on it had become smudged from exposure to the damp, but they were clearly
legible.

  3rd October, 1882

  ‘To Mr. A. Moscrop.

  Our analysis of the liquid you brought in yesterday morning shows it to be a weak solution of chloral hydrate (CCL3 CH 20H). The charge is two shillings and sixpence.’

  ‘He said it would be here somewhere,’ said Thackeray. ‘Oh, he’s a leary old cove, is my sergeant.’

  ‘How did he reason it out, then?’ asked Murphy, not without a tinge of scepticism.

  ‘He didn’t say, but it’s obvious enough—if you’ve done a bit of detective work before. Mrs. Prothero asked this man Moscrop to get her sleeping-potion analysed to see what her husband was dosing her with, d’you see? Her maid collected it from Moscrop and took it to her. Now when she goes off along the beach and gets murdered, she’s going to have it on her person, ain’t she? She ain’t so daft as to leave it in the hotel-room where her husband might pick it up.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Murphy, genuinely impressed. ‘I’ve got another question for you now. How did Mrs. Prothero come to be on the beach on Saturday night?’

  ‘Now that’s something Cribb and I are working on,’ said Thackeray, leaning forward across his bin. ‘Her husband thought she was already drugged with chloral and asleep, but we know she was awake. We’ve got two people’s word for that—Bridget, the maid, told Mr. Moscrop, and young Guy told the sergeant. So there was nothing to stop her from putting on her clothes and going out.’

  ‘The others would have noticed,’ said Murphy.

  ‘Perhaps they did. Nobody’s asked ’em yet. She could have slipped out while they was on the balcony watching the fireworks.’

  ‘Why would she want to go out?’

  ‘It seems to me that there’s two possible answers to that question,’ said Thackeray, prodding the air magisterially with a wooden spade. ‘Either she thought she would go down and see if her husband was among the crowd watching the fireworks, or she had decided after all to thank Mr. Moscrop for bringing the good news about the chloral.’

  ‘And then someone murdered her,’ said Murphy. ‘It’s a pestiferous quarter at night, is Brighton beach. No place for a respectable married lady. It could be one of hundreds that struck her down. I don’t envy you, trying to find the one that did it.’

  ‘It could be a total stranger, I grant you,’ said Thackeray, ‘but something tells me it ain’t. It would help if we knew how she was killed, but the police surgeon wasn’t very helpful on that point. All he’ll say is that the tests he has made show her to have been in good health. It’s a crying shame we didn’t recover all of the parts.’

  ‘We haven’t even found all the clothes,’ said Murphy, ‘unless there’s something in that pile of yours. What about her shoes, for example? There isn’t a shoe among this lot.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to find any,’ said Thackeray. ‘Shoes are very significant things. We can tell a lot from a shoe at the Yard. I reckon myself that the killer realised how much they give away and carried ’em as far from the scene of the crime as he could. And some of the clothes, too. He probably had a bag of some sort, and stuffed everything in that would go. The jacket and skirt, being larger than the rest, had to be left behind. No, we won’t find any more of her clothes than we’ve got already. This piece of paper is the most important thing. How about that cup of tea?’

  In other circumstances the long ascent of Dyke Road on to the Downs would have enraptured a man equipped (as Moscrop now was) with a powerful pair of binoculars. The views of the town behind him and the sea beyond, of Hove, Kingston, Shoreham and the mouth of the river Adur had him feeling for the buckle-straps of his instrument-case repeatedly, only to check himself with the thought that there could be just one subject for study that afternoon. It was essential that he gave himself absolutely to the task of spotting Dr. Prothero on the slopes ahead.

  Soon after sighting Patcham windmill (he was grateful for the map he had snatched from his landlady’s hallstand drawer) he reached the top of a ridge where the road forked and a sign indicated the way to Poynings. Saddlescombe, a small village in a hollow half hidden by trees, lay below, but he elected to continue along the Dyke Road, reasoning to himself that it was wise to gain height by the quickest route. Prothero had still been walking at a sharp step when he had last seen him an hour before, and he doubted whether it was possible to win back much of the ground between them, but there was the massive expanse of downland ahead, with only low bushes intervening. The glasses would be a potent ally up there. He would reach the brow, some seven hundred feet above sea level, and then sweep the landscape repeatedly. Until he reached there, the prospect of recognising anyone at such a distance was remote. If he got the glasses out for a moving figure it was ten to one that it would be a grazing sheep.

  He completed the final ascent to the ancient wind-swept hill-camp forming the summit of the Downs at this point and sat to recover his breath in a clump of long ur-grass the sheep had left. The range of vision on every side was now so vast and the panorama so intricately varied that it could well take an hour’s work with the binoculars to isolate a single moving figure. He would need to stake everything on Prothero still being somewhere on the Down. The foot of the escarpment that had come so suddenly into view as he reached the top, dipping sheerly ahead into the vast plain of the Weald, was rich with autumn foliage—unbelievably beautiful in the afternoon sun, but making it well-nigh impossible to track a man with binoculars.

  He took out the Zeiss and cast about to decide which direction was the most promising. To the west, on the brow of Fulking Hill, a mile or so distant, he fancied he could see a movement. He trained the glasses in that direction, first finding the prominent circle of beeches known as Chanctonbury Ring, altogether too distant. A small inclination to the left and a delicate movement of the screw-focus gave him what he wanted. There was a figure, human and moving—but mounted. He let the glasses drop.

  Below and to his right more figures were positioned on either side of the Devil’s Dyke, the spectacular gash in the hillside from which the long road up from Brighton took its name. For some reason he had not remembered its existence until this moment, in spite of having toiled up Dyke Road for more than an hour. He had read all about it in the gazetteer, in the train, two Saturdays ago. So recent as that? Unbelievable. At any rate, legend said that the Devil cut the cleft through the chalk with the object of letting in the sea to flood the churches in the Weald. Certainly it had a devilish look to it from this view, with its steeply sloping sides a thousand feet apart, faced with smooth turf. A small hotel on the near side bore witness to the Dyke’s popularity with excursionists from the town.

  He now began systematically examining through the binoculars the people in view on either side of the ravine, eliminating women and children at a glance, but several times finding himself compelled to wait for a man to turn his face out of shadow, and then being disappointed. Then, when he was ready to believe his wily quarry had somehow escaped, the glasses picked out a fawn-coloured object on the far side of the Dyke. The knapsack. And as the field of view moved left, he saw Dr. Prothero standing and staring at something, shading his eyes with both hands.

  For a moment he had the uncomfortable feeling that the doctor was looking straight at him. As he put the glasses embarrassedly down, he realised how impossible it was. Besides, Prothero had no reason to suspect he was being followed.

  What was he looking at, then? A landmark, most likely. He was taking his bearings before moving on. Away to the north was the blue mound of Leith Hill, beyond which was Dorking. Was that where he was making for? It was twenty-five miles away, six or seven hours of walking, even at Prothero’s sprightly step.

  He put the glasses to his eyes again and as he did so Prothero picked up the knapsack and began walking back in the general direction of the road, still looking anxiously about him as though he were expecting to see something or somebody he had not found. Some fifty yards on, he stopped, produced a white handkerchief and began waving it energetically. In an ago
ny of curiosity, Moscrop dared not move the binoculars off him to see the recipient of the signal. Soon it was obvious that Prothero, now picking his way quickly up the slope, the knapsack fairly bouncing on his back, had established some kind of contact. There was not long to wait. Near the top of the slope, Prothero was joined in the field of view by a woman on horseback, quite probably the rider Moscrop had first seen on Fulking Hill. The doctor helped her dismount and then took her arm as they walked with the horse over the brow of the hill towards Saddlescombe.

  So that was it. An assignation. It was too indiscreet now to meet on the promenade in front of Lewes Crescent, so they were using the Dyke for a rendezvous, going by separate routes in order not to arouse suspicion.

  He lifted the binocular-strap over his head and clapped the glasses back into their case. An assignation. It was more than a little disappointing. He had been ready to take up the trail all the way to Dorking, through the night, if necessary. Now there was nothing to tell the police that they did not know already. They were not going to be interested where Prothero met his mistress.

  Nor would he demean himself by following them any further. Their squalid embraces were beneath contempt.

  He took out the map. There was an inn marked at the village of Poynings, down the hill. He would take the road that way and fortify himself with a lemon shandy. Perhaps two.

  Some fifteen minutes later, as he passed down and among the trees, the sounds of late afternoon reasserted themselves after the rush of wind against his ears on the higher slopes. Sheep-bells chinked nearby with their flat, but comforting note, and from behind he heard hooves on the road, jarring heavily, taking the strain of horse and rider down the steep incline. Automatically, he moved to the verge and waited to let them pass. It was a lady rider, the same he had seen with Prothero. She was alone now. The sun from over her shoulder prevented him from seeing her face clearly, but as she approached she called out to him.